Emerald Spiral
by Platinum Angel1
Summary: Auron looks back on his jouney as he watches Yuna send him to the Farplane after defeating Yu Yevon. An Aurikku....


Emerald Spiral

Prolouge

Auron never could express his emotions well; he never had to, and for the past ten years had no reason to. His tall, muscular body was lifeless, and therefore had no use for feeling anything except for the cool metal of his sword on his calloused fingers. Yuna's pilgrimage was the only thing of importance to him anyway, it was his promise to Braska that kept him unsent, and he had completed the task by defeating Yu Yevon only moments ago. He should have been thankful that he would finally be able to escape the cursed earth and abandon the old, aching body that he had abused over the years of fighting Sin. 

__

'Be thankful Auron.'

His mind told him scornfully, as sweat gathered on his brow and the pyreflies began to burn in his body. '_Be thankful that Sin's defeat has brought your end, and that you have to leave Spira when it will finally be at peace. Be thankful that you fulfilled your promises to Braska and Jecht, and that you cannot stay and watch Yuna live the life that you helped save. Be proud that you vanquished Sin, and would soon wake the Fayth that would stop dreaming and make Tidus disappear as well.'_

Auron griped the handle of his massive sword, and hoisted it up on his shoulder as felt his body begin to weaken.

'_Be truly thankful that you've ended up falling in love with the one person you never should have, and that you have to say goodbye to her way before your time together is up_.' His mind turned briefly to the young, vivacious blonde girl that had made this journey worthwhile, and his lips turned up into a slight snarl at the cruelty of Spira and all it's splendorous irony. Here he had saved the world, single-handedly turned this rag-tag group of Guardians into an elite fighting force that vanquished Sin for all eternity, and he was repaid with death; not even able to catch one last glimpse of Besaid Island's crimson sunset, or the excitement of the Luca stadium, or even the ruins of Zanarkand underneath a blanket of sparkling stars. And Rikku…well that was one thing that he would miss more than walking the earth, and he didn't even have time to hold her in his arms one last time, and feel the softness of her skin against his own.

Surely, whoever ruled over the unsent was crueler than Yu Yevon himself.

Auron turned his head to the side, catching a glimpse of a pair of spiraled green eyes over the edge of his jacket collar. He had told her what would happen when they defeated Sin, he told her from the start that his soul and body would leave her as soon as the pilgrimage ended, but with her hard-headed determination, she refused to push him away. So why in Yevon's name did he feel like Sin itself when he felt those emerald orbs burning into him at that moment, as if the iridescent pyreflies swimming free from his body were the representation of the evil that wooed her into loving him? 

He didn't seduce her because he was a lecherous old man that was trying to fulfill all of his pleasures before he left Spira, and he certainly hadn't meant to hurt her. In fact, he never intended on meeting anyone like her on this quest, let alone falling in love. But seeing her eyes for that one moment, as she watched his body begin disintegrate into the beautiful but morbid forms of pyreflies, he regretted no act they had committed under the veil of the moon or in the shadows of some cave crevasse along their journey. He savored their serene sessions by the campfire during their nighttime guarding shifts, where she would sit between his legs and lean her head against his chest, telling him tales in her native Al Bhed tongue, and secretly hoping against all odds that she would hear a heartbeat beneath his ribs. He certainly didn't regret taking one last day excursion to Besaid, and disappearing into a tiny cove where she cuddled against him and kissed his neck repeatedly until he folded into making love to her for the first time. And he didn't regret getting to look into those beautiful spiraled eyes, the very eyes that she once thought brought shame upon her. He loved making her feel beautiful because of them. He loved _Rikku_, more than he had ever loved anyone in the world, and wouldn't trade their time together for immortality. And the way her desperate stare was burning into him, he knew she would trade all of the idle Summoners left on Spira to keep him with her if she could.

The feeling of disappearing wasn't nearly as painful as the feeling of leaving her behind. Although he had only known her a short while, she touched his soul as no other ever had with her bright personality and contrasting inner demons that only he knew of. He would certainly miss her when he departed to the Farplane.

Suddenly, Auron felt a strange surge of energy rush through his body, and threw his glance towards Yuna who was unknowingly sending him to his grave as she danced elegantly amongst the soaring pyreflies. With a heavy heart, he stepped forward boldly and prepared to speak his last words to the group, as memories of the first day he and Rikku ever met raced through his mind, and in the few moments before his death, he remembered the spiral green eyes of Rikku upon him at the Moonflow, on that fateful sunny day that changed him for eternity. 

Suddenly, he realized that even though he was leaving Spira forever, he would never have wanted the circumstances to be different, because any alteration to the threads of fate could have kept him from meeting Rikku, and he couldn't have been any happier alive and lonely than he could be now looking back on their journey together.

And for the first time in a long while, Auron smiled.

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Well, this is the start of my first FFX fanfic. I'm not very experienced with these characters, so I'm afraid that they'll be OOC, but hey, it's fanFICTION! Tell me if you liked the first installment of my little Aurikku, and I'll add more chapters if you did!

~*Platinum Angel*~


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